


jupiter jazz (in three modes)

by scionblad



Category: Persona 3
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bounty Hunters, Alternate Universe - Cowboy Bebop, Character Study, Emotional Baggage, Gen, Gun Violence, Implied/Referenced Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-07-28 19:16:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7653526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scionblad/pseuds/scionblad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three bounty hunters opt not to face the music. Not quite yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	jupiter jazz (in three modes)

i.

Seventy-five minutes from landing on Ganymede, Shinjiro hears a loud crash from the back.

He sighs. And here they’d gone almost the entire trip without a burst of noise.

He bums his cigarette and leaves the ship on autopilot. After all, it’s Ganymede. He’s been here countless times. Koromaru barks twice and leaps into the vacated chair. He ruffles the dog’s head briefly before heading back towards the living quarters.

“What’s going on back here?” he grumbles when he reaches the living room.

Akihiko looks up, his knuckles bleeding. The wall in front of him boasts an impressive dent. “She beat me in dice _again_.”

“Oh yeah?” Shinji, trying not to feel annoyed at having to repair the wall, looks down at Hamuko’s grinning face. “He still hasn’t figured it out?”

She leans back in her seat on the couch, surrounded by a number of various objects, ranging from clothing to several pairs of boxing gloves to a few handguns plated in titanium. “Nope.”

“Figured what out?” Akihiko demands.

Shinji shakes his head and doesn’t mention the magnetic anklet she’s wearing. At this rate he has no energy to deal with their antics. He just wants to collect his bounty money, maybe buy a few drinks, and sleep a good long while before heading off to wherever their next hunt will take them. Under better circumstances they wouldn’t have to go to Ganymede, but money is money and food is food, he reasons.

The spot behind his ribs starts aching again. He tries to breathe, deeper breaths to dull the pain. On second thought, perhaps Ganymede being nearby is a blessing.

He leaves Akihiko to grumble and wrap his knuckles in bandages in peace. Hamuko lights a cigarette of her own—an unfortunate habit that she’s picked up from Shinji—and crosses her legs, lost in her own world.

The ship lands without issue, and Aki and Hamu immediately dash off to collect the money. Shinji watches them disappear into the city, then opens the safe and puts a sum of money inside his jacket pocket. He pets Koromaru again before he leaves. Koromaru whines a little bit, like he knows where Shinji’s about to go.

“It’s okay,” he says to the dog’s reddish eyes. “I’ll be fine. I’ll come back like always.”

Koromaru barks, and curls up next to the entryway. Shinji climbs down from the ship and heads into the streets, winding through the cramped alleys and concrete walkways. He stops at a run-down building with a sign that reads _Mandragora_ in curving script.

The girl at the counter stares at him with deadened, unemotional eyes. Shinji settles himself at a barstool.

“A shot of Shadow Hour, please,” he says. The girl turns her head to look at him with her black eyes.

“Lest not the apathy strike you,” she says, and with a swish of her unnaturally red hair, she disappears into a back room.

Shinji scratches his chin while he waits. His foot itches. He hates this place. It’s always smelled funny, like an old man kind of smell, with a hint of acrid smoke and gunpowder.

The door to the back room opens again, and a thin man with long blond hair approaches the counter, a darkened glass bottle in hand. His yellowish eyes flicker with interest when he sees Shinji hunched over in his seat.

“Ah, yes,” he says. “Aragaki.”

Shinji glares at him and wordlessly pulls the cash from out of his jacket pocket. The blond man places the bottle on the counter, but doesn’t let go of it. _Don’t move_ , it seems to say. Shinji doesn’t move.

“How long has it been since you began requiring our services?” The blond man sneers at him. “Four years? Five?”

“Five,” Shinji says, like a clean shot from a revolver.

The blond man raises his eyebrows. “And how is the child?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him.”

“Hmm.” The man’s long fingers slowly slip away from the bottle. “Surely he isn’t hoping for any kind of revenge. That would be a sure shame for the both of us. Perhaps for your charming little friends as well.”

Shinji fixes his gaze on the bottle and tries not to do anything stupid.

“In any case,” the man drawls, “I thank you for your business.”

His hand finally moves away from the bottle. Shinji takes the bottle as normally as he can, trying not to betray the tremor in his fingers. The second the door to the bar closes behind him, he lets out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding.

“Where’ve you been?” Akihiko demands when Shinji comes back on the landing deck of the ship. He’s fixing his zipcraft.

Koromaru runs out from the wide entry of the ship bay, barking. Shinji kneels down to ruffle the fur around the dog’s neck.

“Nowhere in particular,” he says.

Akihiko grunts in response and turns back to the engine. Shinji reaches inside his jacket to light another cigarette and blows smoke in Aki’s face as he walks by.

“Ass,” says Akihiko.

“Idiot,” says Shinjiro.

Hamuko crosses her arms and shakes her head at both of them from her position on top of her own zipcraft. Koromaru barks twice and curls up at Shinji’s feet. The waves lap gently at the sides of the ship. Shinji takes his hat off and watches the clouds drift across the sky.

“What do you guys want for dinner?” he asks them.

“Beef bowls,” says Aki.

“Ramen,” says Hamu.

Idiots, thinks Shinjiro. But he heads for the kitchen anyways.

 

* * *

 

ii.

Hamuko’s lounging on the couch, dipping boiled eggs in soy sauce and eating them and watching the Tanaka guy talk about the hot new bounties. The usual schmuck, she thinks, but when Shinjiro comes in, she tells him about the three members of the crime syndicate hiding out in Callisto and he sets a course for it. Routine.

Akihiko comes in after he leaves and asks what the hell she’s doing with all his eggs. She smartly says, “Eating them, of course; you wouldn’t know how to make a good egg even if you ate one,” and he sighs and goes back to his room and his punching bag, muttering something about lost and wasted sources of protein. Typical. She pops another egg into her mouth and licks the creamy soft yolk out off the roof of her mouth.

They don’t let her get off the ship when they get to Callisto, even when she gives them their best glower.

“There are no women at all,” says Akihiko, angrily wrapping his neck with a bright red scarf that probably looks better on her than it does on him. “Those gross old men will”—he sputters a bit here, Hamuko raises an eyebrow—“take advantage of you or something.”

“I can take care of myself, as you very well know,” she says.

“Well— _yes—_ but I’m not gonna—”

“Oh, for crying out loud,” says Shinjiro. “You know what? If she wants in on it, then just let her in on it.”

Akihiko stares at him for a long time. Then he sighs.

In all fairness, Akihiko’s worry that she’ll attract attention isn’t unwarranted; she can feel the eyes of everyone on her when she walks in, but it isn’t like she’s unused to that. She sits down at the bar and orders a rum and cola, ignoring Akihiko’s disapproving glance. He’s overprotective, honestly. She’s armed and can quick-draw faster than anyone sitting in here.

It’s when she lifts the glass to her lips that she hears a name. _Minato_.

Her heart jumps, shocks of ice in her arteries and veins. She puts the rum and coke down to look around for whoever might have said it, but it’s lost in the sea of voices. Shinjiro taps her shoulder and tells her they’ve gotten what they needed, and she complies, but numbly.

Snow falls as they track through the streets, Aki leading and Shinji bringing up the rear. She says the name over and over to herself, a near-forgotten memory of childhood games and blue hair and tinny music from tiny headphones. She almost trips on a broken patch of icy sidewalk, and Shinji catches her. Bad timing.

She puts it out of her mind. They nab the syndicate guys, she gets a few kicks in, the usual dance and tango. Predictable. Until one of them gasps when he sees her face, “Minato!”

Quicker than anyone can think, Hamuko has her gun pointed at him. Her hand doesn’t tremble, nor do her eyes waver.

“Tell me where he is,” she says in a low, steady voice.

Akihiko looks like he wants to say something, but doesn’t. Shinji doesn’t move, but his eyes bear the look of someone whose gears are turning, memories clicking and falling into place. The syndicate member is silent.

She presses the cold metal tip of the gun to his forehead, an unspoken threat.

The moment holds its breath.

“He’s on Titan, but you’ll never get to him,” the syndicate member breathes. “He’s kept under lock and key by Erebus. No one can get to him.”

They lock eyes. She studies him for a long time. Then slowly, slowly, she withdraws her gun.

“Let’s go get our money,” she tells Aki and Shinji, and walks back onto the ship, leaving them to tie their bounties up.

Three hours later, they’ve left Callisto and are heading to Ganymede again, amidst Shinji’s grumbling under his breath. Akihiko keeps walking by her room, like he wants to sit down opposite her bed and talk to her, but doesn’t have the courage to. She crosses her arms. Overprotective. He won’t come in, though, of course. Neither Shinji nor Aki are good at talking to people anyway, not in the way she is, but at the moment she doesn’t want to talk at all.

She pulls up Titan on her screen, tracing its canyons with her fingers, thinks about Minato and his perpetually gloomy-looking expression, the way his hair hides one of his eyes, his foot tapping to a song blasting from his headphones.

If she goes any farther, her chest starts closing up, and she doesn’t have the strength for that. Not yet, anyway.

That night, Shinjiro makes beef and bell peppers, Akihiko complains about the lack of beef (and protein), Shinji tells him to can it, they’re broke and feeding four mouths.

Hamuko puts the bell peppers in her mouth and pretends there’s beef. No one brings up Titan.

 

* * *

 

iii.

Akihiko wakes up crying, which almost never happens. He splashes his face in the bathroom immediately so the others can’t tell.

He knows full well why he’s crying. He knows what dream he was having. It’s the same one that he’s had for years. On the surface someone might say good riddance to the same images again and again, but he carries it around like a scar (or like a chip on his shoulder, as Shinji says). He needs to keep having that dream; otherwise everything he is now will all be for naught.

Shinji’s already in the kitchen, frying eggs and bacon. Akihiko’s stomach rumbles. He hasn’t had bacon in almost months now. They hadn’t gotten any good money for anything more than eggs and the occasional head of lettuce.

“Sleep well?” asks Shinji, turning the bacon over with his spatula.

“Something like that,” says Akihiko. “Hamuko’s not up yet, is she?”

Shinji snorts. “You know her.”

He slides the eggs and bacon onto three plates, then rinses out the pan. Akihiko digs in, the half-cooked yolk spilling runny yellow around the corners of his mouth.

“You’re a mess,” says Shinji, pouring coffee into his cup.

“Idiot,” says Akihiko.

“Ass.”

They eat and Akihiko turns on the bounty hunter program, the one with infuriatingly catchy music and the greasy-looking middle-aged man named Tanaka. Koromaru trots in, Shinji feeds him a slice or two of bacon. Tanaka grins on the hologram and launches into his usual weird tirade.

“I heard somewhere the guy’s obnoxious because he used to be a salesman on Venus,” says Shinji.

“I’d believe that,” says Akihiko, clearing off the rest of his bacon.

“And lastly, we have our biggest bounty for today—the best for last!” Tanaka spreads his hands wide. “One of the most powerful members of the Strega syndicate!”

A man with round glasses and long brown hair appears on the hologram. Tanaka starts going into the details, but Akihiko simply puts his fork down and stares.

Shinji sets his cup on the table. “Aki,” he says deliberately. “Please don’t tell me you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking.”

Akihiko looks at him. “Don’t you dare,” he says.

“Aki, no.”

“You know I have to do this.” Akihiko stands up, palms on either side of his plate. “I have to. You, of _all people_ , should know better than anyone that I have to.”

“Aki!” Shinji shouts, but Akihiko has already started to leave, brushing past a Hamuko who’s rubbing her eyes sleepily.

“Akihiko, where are you going?” she says, blinking the tiredness from her eyes.

He doesn’t respond to her, nor does he acknowledge Shinji’s increasingly angry yelling. He climbs into his zipcraft without a word, just a burning intensity in his hands.

“If you leave right now, you better fucking know you’re not allowed back onto this damn ship!” Shinji bellows from the door to the ship bay. Hamuko peeks behind him, looking confused.

“Like I give a damn,” Akihiko says, and closes the pod.

Io has barely any atmosphere, and he cruises near the surface of the planet easily. For a moment he wonders who the hell would bother hiding out here in this wasteland filled with volcanoes and cacti, but enters the coordinates into his plane anyway. How morbidly fitting that this was all to take place on a planet bursting with fire.

He lands his racer behind a hill, shoves a gun in a holster and another behind his back, and starts walking.

The sky stretches endlessly above him and the rocky ground below him. Sweat rolls down his forehead. He considers briefly taking off his jacket, but remembers the second gun wedged down his back. The surprise would be advantageous.

The town is nondescript, dry as its planet, and near deserted. He goes to the bar first and orders a glass of water. The bartender gives him a strange look, but humors him. He drinks it all in one go. Then he watches.

Forty minutes pass before the door opens and a man with long brown hair and glasses enters. He orders water, drinks it leisurely, and then leaves.

Drawing his gun out of his holster, Akihiko follows him.

The man walks, winding his way through alleyways, until he stops before a door. Akihiko takes the opportunity to cock his gun; it makes a loud, unmistakable click.

“Ikutsuki,” he says.

The man pushes his glasses up and turns to look at him slowly. “And who might you be?”

Akihiko tightens his grip on his gun. “Someone who will end your shit.”

Ikutsuki looks at him like he thinks Akihiko is a child. “I didn’t truly think that you would take it so easily,” he says, and Akihiko has a split second to think _what?_ before Ikutsuki is running, and the door explodes.

Through the ringing in his ears, he can almost hear singing: a soft, innocent ghost of a voice, swallowed by flames. There’s an odd sensation of falling backwards. He closes his eyes. He’s never felt so peaceful. He can hear someone calling his name.

When he comes to, Hamuko is painting her nails a bright scarlet color and Shinji is smoking. His body is wrapped in bandages, and the ringing in his left ear lingers.

“Oh,” says Hamu. “You’re awake.”

He blinks, and tries to get up, but Hamuko pushes him back down with a bare foot, red toenails shining in the dim lamplight. “You need to rest,” she says.

She nods at Shinji, and hops off to her room, fingers waving in the air with wet nails.

Shinji takes another drag of his cigarette and smashes it onto the ashtray. “You fucking idiot,” he says. “How could you have been as careless as that?”

Akihiko stares at the ceiling fan.

“For crying out loud,” says Shinji. “You can’t keep doing this forever. There’s gotta be a point where you acknowledge that she’s d—”

“Shut up,” says Akihiko. Shinji stands up with an annoyed grunt and walks off towards the bridge.

The ceiling fan spins, round and round.

**Author's Note:**

> i haven’t played persona 3 in months (which is why this is all over the place with characterization) but during wonfes i saw the shinji fig and was like “man he really looks like he walked out of a cowboy bebop episode” and then things got out of control
> 
> anyway i wrote this really fast; please pardon all mistakes and roughness if you see any.
> 
> modes: in western music theory, a type of scale. the most commonly known are the ionian (more commonly known as a major scale) and aeolian (minor). modal jazz is based around modes rather than chord progressions.


End file.
